How to anchor my tent perfectly?

16 November 2020 - Tips & tricks

The most common damage on a party tent is caused by a combination of wind blast and bad anchoring of the tent. It is of major importance that you give anchoring sufficient attention.

Better safe than sorry!

As market leader we have built up quite some experience with anchoring tents. And of course, we’re happy to share this information with you. Because forewarned is forearmed! The tent itself can be the most rock solid tent on planet Earth, if you don’t anchor the tent then danger is all around. Anchoring remains crucial.

Bear in mind we’re talking about tents and not fixed buildings. Firstly, it would be a shame if something happened to your tent, due to the heavy weather conditions. Secondly, you should think about the damage a raging tent can do to others. Better safe than sorry!

 

Stick to the base rules 

  • Make sure the tent is set up correctly. Always follow the rules as described in the manual.
  • When heavy wind conditions are around, equip the tent with all side walls and close completely. If not, the tent catches too much wind. This can cause severe damage to the tent or in worst case, let the tent fly away. When fully closed, there is less change for the tent to be picked up.
  • Anchor sufficiently and accordingly to the tent type and size. At wind blasts of 60km/h and higher, we recommended to foresee additional anchoring.
  • With wind blasts of 90km/h are predicted, we recommend to not take any risks and break the tent down.

Much depends on the ground surface

Logically, the anchoring also depends on where the tent is set up, let’s go through the most important factors:

Hard soil or soft soil

Some quick questions you better respond to first are the following: Will the tent be placed on a hard soil (concrete, terrace, ..) or soft soil (grass, sand, ..). How much space is foreseen for stakes or concrete weights? If hard soil, is it allowed to drill holes for anchoring?
Depending on the situation and circumstances, an estimation can be made if concrete weights, standard weights, stakes, sandbags, … will need to be used.

Surroundings

You should take into account where the tent is being placed and set up. Is the structure completely closed in? Then less anchoring needs to be used. And yes, we talk about ‘less anchoring’, not ‘no anchoring’. Is the structure in an open and windy place, then make sure the tent is anchored properly.

Anchoring per tent type

It is pretty common sense that anchoring should be in line with the tent size. The bigger the tent, the heavier the counter weight.
Next to that, the type of anchoring also depends on the type of tent. Some anchoring can be tent specific, others can be used widely for different tents.

Main rule: make sure the counter weight is sufficient for the tent type. It’s better to anchor too much then not enough. Some tips per tent type:

Folding tent or gazebo

For all models: each leg should have anchoring. The 3x3 and 4x4 can use 15kg per foot, all other should use 30kg. Why not combine weights and stakes?

An overview of different types of anchoring for the folding tent:

Marquees and shelter tents

The base principle is to foresee a tension belt per vertical pole. Ideal distance for this is around two metres from the pole. The tension belt can either be connected to a stake, concrete anchoring point or a concrete block.
For maximum security, a storm security set can be added. The large tension belts need to be thrown over the tent, across the roof. Depending on the size of the tent, this can be one or multiple belts.

An overview of different types of anchoring for the marquees and shelter tents:

Star tent

A star tent needs to be anchored at all 6 foot points. Each anchoring point has a round head to anchor the tent with the ‘horseshoe’.
Anchoring options are: large stakes, large anchoring plate and concrete weights (145 kg or 340 kg), plate for tiles of 30 kg each.

An overview of different types of anchoring for the star tent:

Pagoda tent

A pagoda tent can be placed outside for a long time and thus needs decent anchoring – at each corner. At each roof corner, a heavy duty ring is foreseen to connect a tension belt to it. The tension belt can be connected with stakes in the ground or concrete weights of ideally 340 kg and 600 kg.
When placed on a soft ground. Smaller stakes (2) can be used per foot to fix the foot into the ground.

An overview of different types of anchoring for the pagoda tent:

Bonga Stretch tent

A stretch tent always has four corner clamps. A clamp can be placed on the sides at every meter. Every meter, starting from a corner, a reinforcement is foreseen. A tension belt can be connected to each side clamp and corner clamp.
Watch out! Never use rattle tension belts as this would outperform the strength of stretch tent, which can have catastrophic disasters for your tent.
The tension belts can be connected to the stakes in the ground or to concrete blocks. The ideal distance to the stake or concrete block is around the length of the vertical pole being used, which supports the tent.
Just like for the marquee and shelter tents, also storm security set can be used. Also here a large tension belt has to be thrown over the tent and be connected to additional concrete blocks or stakes in the ground. These can also have cross-shape for better performance.

An overview of different types of anchoring for the stretch tent:

Airspace inflatable tent

The main weights are connect to the foot of each pole. Special bags made to fit around the tube pole need to be filled with sand or gravel first. Depending on the size of the tent, the weights are around 30 kg to 55kg per tube pole.
Additional gravel bars can be placed on the side walls of the tent (if added to the tent) to keep the tent down.
Caution! This is an inflatable tent and thus more light weighted than any other tent. In principle, the weights around the corner foot should be sufficient.

An overview of different types of anchoring for the inflatable tents:

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